Connections
by PoeticLife
Summary: Merlin in four seasons, through the eyes of four characters. Oneshot, a character study of sorts and a look into the connection Merlin seems to have as Emrys to the magic around him as unexplained in the show. Set around season one or two.


_Arthur: "How did you know this place was sacred?"  
_ _Merlin: "That's obvious."  
_ _Arthur: "Pretend it isn't."  
_ _Merlin: "Everything here... is so full of life. Every tree, every leaf... every insect. It's as if the world is vibrating. As if everything is much more than itself."  
_ _Arthur: "You feel all that?"  
_ _Merlin: "Don't you?"_

 _The Disir_

 _._

 **spring**

.

"What are you _doing,_ Merlin?" Arthur asked, a bit impatient. He had turned around to check on his servant only to find that he was sitting in a mossy spot, eyes closed and face turned upwards. It was an unguarded pose, which, when it came to him, was inexplicably rare.

"I feel like I've never seen the sun for decades," Merlin explained, sounding more peaceful and less defensive than he usually would. It was a striking contrast to how he and Arthur usually talked, and it was a bit unsettling, if he were honest. "Don't you feel it? When the sun's out after months of rain and every bit of earth it touches is glad?"

Arthur stared at him, trying to work out if he was trying to be this strange or if it came naturally. He seemed to genuinely feel that what he was speaking was the truth. "No," he said eventually, giving up on trying to figure out the mystery that was Merlin. "I don't."

Merlin glanced at him in surprise. "Really? I thought everyone felt it."

"Only you," said Arthur, and, unable to resist the taunt, he added patronisingly, "You're _special."_

Arthur had no explanation for the panic on Merlin's face as his eyes flew open and searched his face for something. Feeling oddly exposed, like suddenly every insignificant secret he thought he'd kept was revealed, he drew back and asked, "Are you alright, Merlin?"

Apparently not seeing whatever it was he was looking for, he nodded and leaned back, eyes closing again, though the tension obviously had returned to his body. "Yeah, I'm fine."

.

 **summer**

.

"Everything in Camelot happens in summer, doesn't it?"

Gaius looked up from his books, slightly startled by the observation. "No, not everything. Why do you say that?"

"I don't think the castle likes the summer months much. It keeps getting torn down, then rebuilt, then torn down, then rebuilt again after every attempt to take the citadel or the throne. They always happen in summer." Merlin was sitting on the floor against the leg of the table he was working at, and had an odd expression on his face.

Gaius searched for words, found none that could accurately express his shock, and asked weakly, "The castle... _speaks_ to you?"

"No, I just get the impression that it's preparing for something. It's bracing itself for some attack. The walls are safer in summertime."

The words were simple enough, but the idea that this boy could feel the faint magic in Camelot's stones enough to know that the castle was, to some extent, making preparations for the attacks that _always_ came, was incredible. The druid boy had called Merlin by the name Emrys a few months ago, and between this and a few other, smaller instances, he was ready to believe that this immature boy was the figure from the druid's prophecies.

"I think you're right," Gaius admitted, unable to think of anything to say. "That's... quite remarkable, my boy."

Merlin gave him half a smile. "Me? No, it's the castle that's doing this."

.

 **autumn**

.

"I love autumn," Gwen said cheerfully as she and Merlin carried their respective employer's laundry up. "It's much too hot in summer; this is where I belong."

"Everything dies in autumn," Merlin retorted halfheartedly, looking as though his mind was very much elsewhere. This wasn't unusual, she had learnt, and she had grown fond of his scatterbrained ways, but he didn't usually look so serious.

She realised uncomfortably that she knew almost nothing of what his life had been like outside of Camelot. She had been with him to Ealdor and seen him talking with his mother and his friend, but none of the other people there seemed very inclined to be friendly towards him. She wondered what had happened to make him say this.

"What do you mean, everything dies in autumn?" She asked, slightly concerned for her friend.

He glanced up from the clothes in his arms as if he was only just noticing her. "Hm? Oh, nothing. It's just... all the leaves are dying and all that. The world just seems dead to me now. Everything's getting so cold now, isn't it?" He flashed her a smile that came out of nowhere. It wasn't quite convincing. "I expect I'll be running around bringing up more firewood for Arthur in no time."

It was a clear deflection. Gwen frowned a bit, but replied, "Contrary to what you might think, Merlin, not all nobility demand that their servants do absolutely everything for them."

"And contrary to what you might think, Gwen, Arthur can't even dress himself," Merlin replied, cheeky grin erasing any trace of that serious expression.

She wondered privately, as he chattered about serving Arthur, which was real and which was the act.

.

 **winter**

.

"Merlin," Morgana said, stopping to stand by him. He was standing at the window in the corridor in a stiff pose, casting a faint shadow on the wall behind him. "How are you?"

"Do you ever feel trapped, milady?" Merlin asked absently. His eyes were fixed somewhere out of the open window, and though Morgana tried to see what he was looking at, she couldn't.

"Sometimes," she admitted quietly. "Why, do you?"

He gave her a little smile that was nowhere near as sincere as it usually was. "Every time it snows. It feels like I'm being slowly suffocated."

Surprised, Morgana took a closer look at him. There was a strangeness about him that she had never noticed so prominently; something about the way he stood or the look in his eye made him seem somehow vulnerable and completely in control in a contradictory way that made her think very hard about all of the conclusions she had drawn about him.

"Never mind," he said, grinning more genuinely and seeming to brush it off, shaking his shoulders a bit in a return to his usual loose posture. She wondered if his smile was genuine after all. "How about you, milady? Do like the snow?"

"It's beautiful from a distance like this," she murmured, feeling that her answer meant more than a simple discussion about weather and beginning to think about Camelot and Uther, "but I'm not sure I can forgive how many people are freezing to death we can do nothing to help."

He looked at her, and in her peripheral vision, she watched him closely. Merlin's eyes, holding some inexpressible fear or sadness, blinked once, then glanced away.

"I suppose I agree," he replied, his voice empty of any emotion at all in a way that startled her more than anything else had in the last few minutes. "Good day, milady."

And he walked down the corridor in a blue neckerchief and an air of peculiarity, footsteps echoing until they were gone.


End file.
